


Blueprints for a Family

by ruffboi



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, WELCOME TO BABY HELL, also in which julia/magnus was an important relationship and magnus can love them both, in which there are babies and everyone lives happily ever after, really the whole crew's here but they're not central to the story so i'm not tagging them, should be canon compliant for the most part, spoilers through finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 23:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruffboi/pseuds/ruffboi
Summary: They save the world, and then they rebuild.  For Lucretia, apparently, that means building a family that's bigger than the one she had before, and she wouldn't change it for the world.





	Blueprints for a Family

**Author's Note:**

> The title is terrible, I know. I'm so sorry.
> 
> Spoilers for the finale lie beyond. BEWAAAARE.

#### Learning

Lucretia hadn't heard about the destruction of Raven's Roost.

It wasn't in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't a large city whose news spread quickly like Neverwinter or Goldcliff.  There'd been some talk of a rebellion against a tyrant, but Lucretia had checked on the situation and found peace had resumed (thanks to Magnus, unsurprisingly, and it was a relief and a heartbreak to know how much he was still the same even without that century she knew him).  She had other things to worry about, she had to focus on the building of her organization, and before she knew it almost a year had passed.

She tried to check on them each once a year.  Merle got the most - even with his marriage in shambles, he stuck to the coast and moved leisurely, and seeing him on the beach was soothing, and it comforted her.  Taako was worrying - since the last disastrous Sizzle It Up With Taako show, he'd been harder to track, more withdrawn, and Lucretia hoped he found some sort of peace soon.  Magnus... well.  She didn't visit Magnus often.  She was glad he was happy, she was, Julia was a wonderful woman and was so good for Magnus. But there was only so much her heart could take, and so she listened to rumors and visited only when she worried, sure that he would be safe and happy until she'd finished her mission.

Standing in the road in view of the abandoned ruins of Raven's Roost, then, she feels deep horror sinking into her bones.

She hadn't watched him carefully enough. She hadn't protected him, and this is where it all has to end, there aren't any more chances—

"Hope you weren't lookin' t'find anyone in town."

Lucretia jumps, whirling with wide eyes and a pounding heart to find an older man with a mule standing behind her.

"I... what... happened?" she asks, cringing at her ineloquence even as she struggles to find any words to say in the midst of her sudden grief.

"Governor Kalen," the man says, and spits into the dirt in disgust.  "Didn't take kindly to the rebellion.  Knew the Burnsides both lived'n worked in the Craftsmen's Quarter, bombed the supports.  Fair few folk died, the rest left for safer places t'live."

"Magnus Burnsides?" Lucretia asks, swallowing hard, even though it couldn't be anyone but.

"That who you're lookin' for?" the man asks, but doesn't wait for her response.  "Good luck.  No one's seen him since he left for Neverwinter a few days 'fore it happened.  Figure he heard what happened to that wife of his - good girl, Julia, I knew her daddy - and just didn't come back."

"Oh."  The relief flooding through Lucretia at his words feels like a physical thing in her veins, ringing in her ears, and she almost misses the next thing the man says.

"Shame about the kid, though."

Everything stops.  "Kid?"

"Yeah.  Can't remember her name, just a little tyke, few months old.  She'd been sick so one'a the old grams was lookin' after her, since her mama had to work while her daddy was travelin', and they never found Magnus last I heard."

Lucretia sucks in a sharp breath, stepping towards the man with an intensity she hasn't felt in a long time.  "Where is she?  Who took her, where do they have her?"

The man shrugs, though he seems to consider her before he answers, perhaps worried about her intentions.  "Don't rightly know.  Might ask back at Darkwater, 'bout a day back the road."  He jerks a thumb over his shoulder down the road behind him.  "Fair few'a the survivors settled there."

"Yes," Lucretia says, nodding. "All right.  Thank you." She casts teleport without thinking - she has to go back to the base, but she now has a dual goal - finding Magnus, and finding his daughter.

Back on the road, the man shakes his head and tugs his mule's lead.  "Wizards."

#### Searching

She finds Magnus.  He's a bit of a mess, still deep in the grief of losing his family, but he's alive, and he's moving forward.  From what Lucretia can gather, he's working as a bit of a mercenary to get by, trying to find Governor Kalen to extract revenge.  She can't blame him, to be honest, and quietly puts out feelers to try to find him as well.  It will probably take time, as she knows so little about the man, but if she can find him and help guide Magnus to where he is, maybe Magnus can get some closure.

She doesn't find the child.  She learns about her - Charlotte Burnsides, named for Julia's mother, sweet baby, a bit colicky but cheerful and friendly.  Taken in by the Coopers, whose children were nearly grown.  But where the Coopers went seems to be a mystery no one knows the answer to, and Lucretia can't spare as much time or attention as she wants for the searching.  She has a responsibility to this world that comes before her desire to help Magnus, and at least it sounded like the little girl was in good hands in the meantime.

Time passes.  Fisher gives her a child that allows her to begin the process of bringing the boys home.  (Magnus' child should be nearing her fourth birthday, she thinks, and doesn't allow herself to dwell on.)

She brings them in.  She forces herself to stay impassive and professional with some of her closest friends.  She tells Magnus that his Candlenights back rub coupon is the nightmare scenario, and she means it (though not the way he thinks).  She pretends she doesn't know the things he's suffered through; she pretends she doesn't want to wrap her arms around him, cover him with kisses, and never let him go.

They remember.  They fight the Hunger.  She backs down from her plan and Magnus - Magnus who she expected to hate her, Magnus who she expected to be furious with her, Magnus who she expected would never be hers again - hugs her as Taako asks if she can't use her barrier to do something better than she'd planned.  Presses a quick kiss, unseen, to her temple as he lets her go.  They fight.  They _win_.

She doesn't know where Charlotte Burnsides is, but after the fight, when they're finally having a chance to TALK; after Taako's refused to look at her and Lup's given her a grin and thumbs-up and Davenport's told her he needs to take some time to process everything but he forgives her; after all that, she tells him.

"I didn't want to tell you before," she says, her head on his shoulder and his fingers combing gently through her hair, "because I couldn't... Magnus did you ever go back to Raven's Roost?"

He tenses a little, but presses a little closer to her - a painful question, but not an unwelcome one, she thinks with relief.  "Once," he said, his voice rough.  The grief isn't fresh, and she knows he's healed a lot, but she still can't imagine how it feels even now.  "That's how I found out.  Went through the rubble..." his voice catches, and he coughs a little.  "I couldn't stay.  I never went back or tried to find anyone else."

"Oh, Magnus," Lucretia said softly, tangling her fingers with the fingers of his free hand.  "You found the shop."  It's not really a question.  He squeezes her fingers and she knows she's right.

"It's fine," he says, though it isn't and they both know that.

"It's not," she says, and sits up so she can look him in the eye.  "But Magnus... that's what I didn't tell you.  I didn't know how to explain why I knew, especially when I didn't have any leads—"

"Lu?" he asks, frowning.

"Your daughter survived," she blurts out, so she doesn't get distracted on a tangent.  His face pales suddenly.  "She'd been sick, I think, so she was staying with some friends.  Some people called the Coopers took her with them when they evacuated, but I haven't been able to find her, Magnus I'm sorr—"

He cuts her off with a kiss, suddenly beaming.  "She's alive," he whispers, pressing their foreheads together.  "Lu, I— thank you.  I never would've even _known_..."

"We'll find her," Lucretia promises.  "I haven't been able to yet, but we don't have to worry about the Hunger or the Relics anymore.  We can just... FIND her."  She smiles a little and adds, "Besides, now we know the world's greatest detective."

#### Angus

She waits a week after they defeat the Hunger before she asks Angus about his family.

"I know you said…" she trails off and clears her throat.  It's hard not to be Madame Director when she's with her employees - her _friends_ \- from the Bureau.  That will always be a part of her, of course, but it's not all of her, and she's determined to allow herself to be Lucretia again, with everyone.

"I didn't ask too many questions," she starts again, "when you joined the Bureau.  You were asking questions that could've gotten you in trouble, you'd be safer here where I could watch you."

"I know, ma'am!" Angus says, nodding.  "But I didn't really have any family.  I had some second cousins, and my grandpa, and I'd stay with all of them for a little while."  It breaks Lucretia's heart at how matter-of-factly he says that.

"I see."  She considers, for a moment, whether she's overstepping herself by offering what she's thinking, and then decides she doesn't care.  If ever there was a time to take care of your loved ones, now is that time.  "Angus, would you like me to… be your legal guardian?"

His eyes light up.  She's already making a mental list of necessary paperwork before he even answers.

It all goes through faster and easier than she thinks it should, but it probably has something to do with her being a member of the Starblaster crew.  Angus asks her if this means he should call her mom, and she tells him he can call her whatever he wants.

"I think I'll still call you Lucretia, ma'am, if that's okay," he says cautiously.

Within two months, he's calling her his mother to anyone who asks, and when she's travelling and he writes her letters from school, he addresses them, "Dear Mom".  Taako deigns to tease her about finding the perfect mini-her to adopt.  She loves every minute of it.

#### Found

Charlotte Burnsides, called Charlie by her parents (both biological and surrogate), is almost six years old when Angus finds them, living in a little town 10 full weeks' travel from Raven's Roost under a different name.  Lucretia is worried they won't want to part with the little girl they've raised, or that Charlie (as Magnus explained they'd called her) wouldn't want to leave.

But the Coopers (now the Tanners) are welcoming, and fold Magnus into tight hugs as soon as they see him, so glad that he's alive and well and that he found them.

"We were worried you wouldn't find us 'cause of the name," Mr. Tanner says, clapping Magnus on the shoulder.  "Kalen's still out there, though, and we didn't want to risk it."

"I understand," Magnus says with a nod, lips pressed tightly together.  "After me, he probably would've come after you."  The Tanners nod, and Lucretia knows she'll have to get the full story of the rebellion against Kalen one day.  

"We told her about you," Mrs. Tanner says, eyes wet, as Mr. Tanner goes to fetch Charlie from where she's playing outside.  "Every day.  We told her that you'd come back for her one day and she'd get to go home with you."

Magnus hugs her again, his own eyes bright with what Lucretia knows are tears.  "Thank you, Mary.  Thank you so much for looking after her."

" _Charlotte_!" Mr. Tanner's voice drifts in, sounding shocked and a mix of horrified and amused.  Magnus darts out the side door, panicked, and Lucretia's close on his heels.  They come to a sudden halt next to Mr. Tanner where he's trying his hardest to be disapproving as he looks down on a dirt-smudged little girl with auburn hair, freckles, and eyes that look just like her father's, a tiny kitten cradled in her arms.  And behind the little girl, groaning on the ground, is a boy probably a year or two older than her, rolled in the fetal position.

"He was gonna hurt the kitty!" Charlie protests, holding the grey kitty in question out for Mr. Tanner to see.  "So I hit him in the boy bits, 'cause Donny said it hurts to get hit there."

Mr. Tanner shakes his head with a rueful sigh, and Lucretia thinks that she's never seen Magnus look more pleased and proud and happy than he does in this moment.

#### Homecoming

Charlie solemnly presents the kitten to Magnus when Mr. Tanner introduces him as her Daddy, the hero.  Magnus takes the kitten carefully, the little ball of fluff dwarfed by his hands, and Charlie stares up at him for a long, silent moment.

"You were in stories in my head when the dark stuff came," she says.

"Yeah," Magnus responds, clearly overwhelmed by the existence of his daughter after thinking she was dead for so long.

"I liked them," she says.  "Will you tell me them again?"

Magnus laughs softly, a crooked smile on his face.  "Sure," he says.  "As many times as you want, kiddo."

Lucretia has never loved him more.

They take the Tanners with them, as much for Magnus as for Charlie, and to Lucretia's great relief the little girl is smart and fearless and more than happy to be carried everywhere by Magnus; asking questions, demanding stories, climbing atop her father's shoulders like a mountain goat.  She meets the IPRE crew, her new aunts and uncles, delighted that the people from the stories in her head were real, and that SHE got to have them all to herself.  She meets the remaining members of the Bureau of Balance, not really an organization anymore so much as a group of people who don't want to go separate ways.  Lucretia thinks maybe she could make something new out of it.  Carey and Killian charm her with promises to tell her even MORE stories about her daddy that she didn't get to know on the day the dark came.  Angus doesn't know what to do with her enthusiasm, but she loves asking him questions because he graciously answers every single one.

And Lucretia... Lucretia finds herself reading books and doing research on child rearing, wanting to be able to help.  She finds herself in a position of authority - more than just "an adult", almost... almost on equal footing with Magnus.  Without even meaning to, she steps into the gap that Julia left behind, not quite filling the gaps, but doing her best.

She'd already adopted Angus, of course, and was used to beginning to call him her son, but when she takes them both to the market one day, a shopkeeper compliments her on her children, and she smiles and says thank you and walks away before she realizes that... she'd just thought of Charlie as her child.

"I think I need to step back," Lucretia says to Magnus that night after he tucks Charlie into bed.  "From dealing with Charlie."

Magnus frowns in confusion as he slides into bed.  "What?  Why?  Has she been misbehaving?"

"No, no," Lucretia says quickly, "she's wonderful, except when she's being too much like you."  Magnus chuffs a soft laugh at that.  "I just... I think I'm getting too attached."

"I... don't get it," Magnus admits.  "You're allowed to like her..."

"Someone called her my child today," she says.  "And I... I didn't even process it as not being true until I'd walked away.  And I don't want to—"

"Woah, woah, Lucretia.  Stop."  If she'd known him for less time, she might think his voice was strained, that he was tense, but Lucretia's known Magnus for over a century.  She hears the barely-contained laughter in his voice, and sees it in his eyes.  "We're... we're for real, right?" he asks.  She nods.  "Okay.  Then why... _can't_ she be yours?"  He pauses.  "Uh, assuming you want her to be, no pressure."

"What about Julia?" Lucretia asks quietly.

"You're not a replacement," Magnus says, his own voice dropping to match hers.  "Julia'll always be Charlie's mother.  But... that doesn't mean you can't still be her mom, if you wanna be."

Lucretia closes her eyes and presses her forehead to Magnus' shoulder, the tightness in her chest loosening for the first time since the market that afternoon.  "You sure?" she asks.  

"Yeah," he says, lifting her chin so he can kiss her gently.

#### Charlie

Somehow, it's more exhausting taking care of Charlie when Lucretia allows herself to take full parental responsibility for her.  She seems to never stop moving, and getting into cupboards, and climbing unreasonably high things, and hitting kids who pick on people or animals littler than them.  She always has a scraped knee, or a stubbed toe, or a split knuckle.

"She is absolutely your daughter," Lucretia says wearily, coming home from the latest parent-teacher conference at Charlie's grade school.  It's ridiculous how hard she's had to fight from getting a first-grader expelled.  

"What'd she do this time?" Magnus asks, seeming to brace himself for the words.

"Broke the nose of a third-grader who made her friend cry," Lucretia admits.  Magnus's whole face and body language shift from 'wary' to 'proud'.  Despite herself, Lucretia's proud too.  She sighs in resignation.

"I think we need to get Lup and Taako to teach her ways to fight back _and_ stay out of trouble," she says.  "Because she's so much like you, so she's obviously not going to just _stop_."

Magnus laughs loud enough that both Charlie and Angus come to see what's going on.  Lucretia doesn't let him tell them.  They don't need to get any ideas.  Charlie, specifically, doesn't need any more ideas than absolutely necessary, she's already in enough trouble.

Secretly, though, Lucretia couldn't be prouder of her daughter.

#### Burnsides

When Charlie is almost seven, Magnus and Lucretia get married.  It's very similar to the wedding Barry and Lup had so many years ago, Merle presiding and the crew all crowded around with drinks in their hands.  It's different, though, in a good way.  They have friends with them - Carey and Killian (freshly returned from their honeymoon), Avi, Kravitz, some of the residents of Refuge, even Lucas - and they have Angus and Charlie.  Charlie goes around to every guest to inform them that her daddy was going to marry the pretty lady, that the pretty lady is her mom.  Lup whispers in her ear and busts out laughing when Charlie declares to Cassidy that "Daddy's marrying the pretty lady, but he doesn't deserve her."

Five months later, their odd family grows by one.

"You're almost making me feel competitive," Lup says jokingly, cradling her newest niece in her arms. "Y'hear that Lav?  You're makin' Lup feel competitive about childrearing, who fuckin' knew that was possible?"

"Lup, language," Lucretia says absently, helping Charlie climb up into bed with her.

"Gotta teach 'em young," Lup says solemnly, handing the dark-skinned infant back to her mother.  Lucretia rolls her eyes, and considers getting Magnus' attention away from where he's bragging to Kravitz and Taako about how smart his newborn daughter is.  She decides against it - he'd probably agree with Lup, honestly, if only to exasperate her.

"She's so _little_!" Charlie exclaims, gently patting the baby's cheek exploratorily.  "What's her name?"

"You were little, too, once," Lucretia says with a smile.  "And her name is Lavender."

#### Lavender

Even as a baby, it's clear Lavender will take very much after her mother and older brother.  She hardly cries, instead staring wide-eyed and solemn at everyone around her.  Taako is miffed when he can't make her laugh, though the sting is lessened somewhat when Lup can't either.  She always has a wide, brilliant smile for Magnus, and is always calmest when Angus holds her.

But Charlie is, as the years pass, her biggest fan, her staunchest ally, and her most dedicated protector.

Lucretia had worried, as Lavender got older and it became clear that she'd be yet another quiet type, that Charlie would feel left out.  Magnus was as loud and boisterous as ever, but one dad compared to a mom and two siblings…  Magnus always laughed and kissed her when Lucretia worried about it too much.

"She's got me, she's got Taako and Lup and Merle and Dav," he'd say.  "She's not lacking for loud, action-oriented family members, Lu."

"It's different, though," she insists, remembering her own parents and siblings, tradesmen and craftsmen, with no particular interest in books or scholarly pursuits.  "I don't want her to feel out of place."

"You love her," Magnus says.  "I think that'll make her feel at home."

And it seems to be enough.  Lucretia can't be sure, because she's not in Charlie's head, but though her older daughter doesn't join in on the more intellectual, magical discussions Lucretia has with Angus, or the debates about books she has with little Lavender, Charlie always seems happy.  And as Lavender starts learning magical theory and practice, coming home excited and breathless from school, she doesn't seek out her brother (grown but often visiting) or her mother to tell about her day.

She finds Charlie.

"If you're interested in magic, you know you can always start learning," Lucretia says to her as they make dinner, after teenaged Charlie had intently and enthusiastically listened to Lavender's account of her day, and the new things she was learning.  

"I'm not really," Charlie says with a shrug, peeling potatoes with a quick, practiced hand.  She was so good with knives.  Her ducks were almost better than Magnus could produce.  "But Lavvy likes it, so I want to ask her about it, y'know?  'Cause I like it when she's happy."

Lucretia doesn't bother drying her hands before pulling her daughter into a tight, proud hug; Charlie shrieks and yells, " _Mo-om!_ " with a laugh in her voice (Magnus' laugh, so familiar but so new in this nimble-handed troublemaker of a girl) as soapy water drips down her neck.

#### Family

"We're all very proud of you," Lucretia says, straightening Lavender's collar.  "You remember that when everyone's teasing you about being a nerdlord, okay?"

Lavender waves her mother's hands away, laughing softly.  "I know, Mom," she says, straightening the graduate's robes over her dress.  Sixteen isn't the youngest anyone's graduated from the graduate program at the Academy of Magical Sciences (Angus was fifteen), but it's still something to be proud of, and Lucretia is _so_ proud.  "It's just family shit, they love me very much, just because they tease me doesn't mean they're not proud of me, it's just how we express affection."

Lucretia laughs, and kisses Lavender on the cheek.  "That's my girl.  Go have fun at your party."

Her daughter - tall, lanky, bright-eyed and quick-witted - flashes a rare grin that matches her father's so well, and enters their house, where the whole family is waiting.  A cheer rises up, and as Lucretia follows her in and stops in the doorframe, she reflects (not for the first time) on how lucky she is.

Charlie's the first to lunge forward and pull Lavender into a hug, with an exuberant cry of, "Congrats, Lavvy!", and Angus isn't far behind.  Angus grew into himself well, matching Magnus for height, though Lavender's almost caught up to them both.  Most people can't tell that Angus and Lavender aren't related, anymore, both of them tall and bookish, with similar facial expressions in a multitude of occasions that Taako swears is like watching Lucretia in miniature.  He's an accomplished wizard, and even taught for a while at Taako's school, but mostly he followed his eternal love of detecting, and still works as the World's Greatest Detective, and no one adds "Boy Detective" to his name anymore.  Well, except Taako and Magnus, but that's family.

Charlie doesn't match her siblings at all in looks - Magnus says she takes after Julia, though Lucretia thinks there's more of him in Charlie than he thinks.  She's short and a little stocky, her skin a few shades lighter and covered in freckles.  She's got thick muscles from working in The Wooden Duck - a woodworking and blacksmith shop founded by the youngest generation of Burnsides in the newly-founded town of Raven's Rest, right next to the Hammer and Tails dog training school.  She'd apologized to Lucretia, years ago, for wanting to be a craftsman instead of a scholar.  Lucretia had told her that all she ever wanted her children to be was happy.  And she is, Lucretia knows, she's so very happy.

Magnus swoops in before the siblings break their embrace, picking all of them up off the ground just a little bit, to loud shrieking and laughter, and Angus faintly saying, "Please put me down, sir!" out of habit.  And then they're down, and Lucretia watches Lavender move on to her many aunts and uncles. Taako gives her a noogie while Lup declares her Queen of the Nerdlords, and crowns her with a shitty paper crown covered in purple glitter.  Merle hugs her and tells her Pan is proud of her, too - Lavender had decided to worship Pan years ago, to Merle's great delight.  Davenport's not back quite yet, running behind, but his most recent postcard is here with a promise to bring her a graduation present.  Barry and Kravitz both shake her hand, before Barry tugs her into a tight hug and whispers something in her ear.  Whatever it is, it makes her laugh, and Lucretia smiles.

Carey and Killian are there, and Mavis (who had turned out to be one of Lavender's best friends), and Avi.  Lavender hugs all of them, receiving well-earned well wishes and congratulations.  Magnus, Merle, and Taako are all competing to tell their favorite Lavender story the loudest, at the same time, and Lavender is protesting and telling them to stop but she's laughing as she does, beaming as bright, in Lucretia's opinion, as the Light of Creation ever shone.

And then Charlie's there next to her, grabbing Lucretia's hand in her own strong, calloused ones.  "C'mon, Mom," she says with a smile.  "Join the party."  Lucretia smiles at her, looks out at the room that holds her friends - her _family_ \- as they celebrate. The Starblaster and the Hunger seem more than a lifetime ago, compared to the joy and contentment her life has brought her. She has a place here, where she is accepted and treasured and loved, where she loves in return.  She locks eyes with Magnus from across the room, and her heart swells when his smile softens. Lucretia squeezes Charlie's hand as her daughter tugs encouragingly, steps forward,

And rushes in.

**Author's Note:**

> So this document was sent to my wife titled WELCOME TO BABY HELL because my response to shipping is invariably to give them all babies at some point. I started this a couple weeks ago but the finale pushed me over the edge into MUST FINISH territory. 
> 
> If you liked it, feel free to come hang out with and/or scream at me on tumblr, at [ruffboijuliaburnsides](http://ruffboijuliaburnsides.tumblr.com). I always love talking headcanons and AUs.


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